Ana Mendieta valuation
Pressed, burned and dug the outline of her own body into earth, sand and rock, and photographed what was left.
Ana Mendieta (1948–1985) was born in Havana and sent to the United States in 1961, aged twelve, with her sister, through Operation Peter Pan, spending her adolescence in foster homes and institutions in Iowa.
What a work by Ana Mendieta is worth
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
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Bio
Ana Mendieta (1948–1985) was born in Havana and sent to the United States in 1961, aged twelve, with her sister, through Operation Peter Pan, spending her adolescence in foster homes and institutions in Iowa. She studied at the University of Iowa, first painting and then, from 1972, in Hans Breder's Intermedia programme, and began making performances and actions, often with blood, hair and her own body. The Silueta series, made between 1973 and 1980 in Iowa and in Mexico, is the work her name stands for: the outline of her body traced, pressed or dug into earth, mud, sand, grass and snow, filled with flowers or set alight, and recorded in colour slides, photographs and Super-8 film. In 1981 she carved figures into the rock of the caves at Jaruco in Cuba, the Rupestrian Sculptures, and from 1983 she held a Rome Prize fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, making sculpture from earth, sand and wood.
Because the Siluetas were made outdoors and left to weather, the photographs are the work, and almost all of what comes to market is photographic. The distinction that matters is between prints Mendieta made herself and later editions made from her slides and negatives by the Estate of Ana Mendieta, which are numbered and carry its documentation; Galerie Lelong represents the estate. Colour prints of the 1970s fade and shift in light, and the edition, the date of printing, the paper and any certificate should all be recorded.
Havana, Iowa and the Siluetas
Mendieta took her MFA in Intermedia at Iowa in 1977 and moved to New York, where she joined A.I.R. Gallery, the first cooperative gallery for women artists in the United States.
Earth Body, a retrospective organised by the Hirshhorn Museum in 2004, travelled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Hayward Gallery in London showed Traces in 2013.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
